"No, indeed, you will not!" said Hildegarde. "Rose shall sit in this rocking-chair, and I will take the window-seat, which is better than anything else; so, there we are, all settled! Now, Martha—" She hesitated a moment, and Rose shrank back and made a little deprecatory movement with her hand; but Hildegarde was not to be stopped. "Martha, we have seen the house in the wood. We just happened on it by chance, and we saw—we saw Cousin Wealthy go in. And we want to know if you can tell us about it, or if Cousin Wealthy would not like us to be told. You will know, of course."
She paused. A shadow had crossed Martha's cheerful, wise face; and she sighed and stitched away in silence at her pillow-case for some minutes, while the girls waited with outward patience. At last, "I don't know why I shouldn't tell you, young ladies," she said slowly. "It's no harm, and no secret; only, of course, you wouldn't speak of it to her, poor dear!"
She was silent again, collecting her words; for she was slow of speech, this good Martha. "That house," she said at last, "belongs to Miss Bond. It was built just fifty years ago by the young man she was going to marry." Hildegarde drew in her breath quickly, with a low cry of surprise, but made no further interruption.
"He was a fine young gentleman, I've been told by all as had seen him; tall and handsome, with a kind of foreign way with him, very taking. He was brought up in France, and almost as soon as he came out here (his people were from Castine, and had French blood) he met Miss Bond, and they fell in love with each other at sight, as they say. She lived here in this same house with her father (her mother was dead), and she was as sweet as a June rose, and a picture to look at. Ah! dear me, dear me! Poor lamb! I never saw her then. I was a baby, as you may say; leastwise a child of three or four.
"Old Mary told me all about it when first I came,—old Mary was housekeeper here forty years, and died ten year ago. Well, she used to say it was a picture to see Miss Wealthy when she was expecting Mr. La Rose (Victor La Rose was his name). She would put on a white gown, with a bunch of pansies in the front of it; they were his favorite flowers, Mary said, and he used to call her his Pansy, which means something in French, I don't rightly know what; and then she would come out on the lawn, and look and look down river. Most times he came up in his sail-boat,—he loved the water, and was more at home on it than on land, as you may say. And when she saw the white boat coming round the bend, she would flush all up, old Mary said, like one of them damask roses in your belt, Miss Hilda; and her eyes would shine and sparkle, and she'd clap her hands like a child, and run down to the wharf to meet him. Standing there, with her lovely hair blowing about in the wind, she would look more like a spirit, Mary would say, than a mortal person. Then when the boat touched the wharf, she would hold out her little hands to help him up; and he, so strong and tall, was glad to be helped, just to touch her hand. And so they would come up to the house together, holding of hands, like two happy children. And full of play they was, tossing flowers about and singing and laughing, all for the joy of being together, as you may say; and she always with a pansy for his button-hole the first thing; and he looking down so proud and loving while she fastened it in. And most times he'd bring her something,—a box of chocolate, or a new book, or whatever it was,—but old Mary thought she was best pleased when he came with nothing but himself. And both of them that loving and care-taking to the old gentleman, as one don't often see in young folks courting; making him sit with them on the piazza after tea, and the young man telling all he'd seen and done since the last time; and then she would take her guitar and sing the sweetest, old Mary said, that ever was sung out of heaven. Then by and by old Mr. Bond would go away in to his book, and they would sit and talk, or walk in the moonlight, or perhaps go out on the water. She was a great hand for the water, Mary said; and never's been on it since that time. Not that it's to wonder at, to my mind. Ah, dear me!
"Well, my dears, they was to be married in the early fall, as it might be September. He had built that pretty house, so as she needn't be far from her father, who was getting on in years, and she his only child. He furnished it beautiful, every room like a best parlor,—carpets and sofys and lace curt'ins,—there was nothing too good. But her own room was all pansies,—everything made to order, with that pattern and nothing else. It's a sight to see to-day, fifty years since 't was all fresh and new.
"One day—my dear young ladies, the ways of the Lord are very strange by times, but we must truly think that they are his ways, and so better than ours,—one day Miss Wealthy was looking for her sweetheart at the usual time of his coming, about three o'clock in the afternoon. The morning had been fine, but the weather seemed to be coming up bad, Mary thought; and old Mr. Bond thought so, too, for he came out on the piazza where Mary was sorting out garden-herbs, and said, 'Daughter, I think Victor will drive to-day. There is a squall coming up; it isn't a good day for the water.'
"And it wasn't, Mary said; for an ugly black cloud was coming over, and under it the sky looked green and angry.
"But Miss Wealthy only laughed, and shook her yellow curls back,—like curling sunbeams, Mary said they was, and said, 'Victor doesn't mind squalls, Father dear. He has been in gales and hurricanes and cyclones, and do you think he will stop for a river flaw? See! there is the boat now, coming round the bend.' And there, sure enough, came the white sailboat, flying along as if she was alive, old Mary said. Miss Wealthy ran out on the lawn and waved her handkerchief, and they saw the young man stand up in the boat and wave his in return. And then—oh, dear! oh, dear me!—Mary said, it seemed as if something black came rushing across the water and struck the boat like a hand; and down she went, and in a moment there was nothing to see, only the water all black and hissing, and the wind tearing the tree-tops."
"Oh! but he could swim!" cried Hildegarde, pale and breathless.